


The Boy From the Pink and Dark

by deuil



Category: JoJo no Kimyouna Bouken | JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-20
Updated: 2014-01-03
Packaged: 2018-01-05 05:52:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1090373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deuil/pseuds/deuil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>" Before Google translate, there was Okuyasu Nijimura. "</p><p>Okuyasu decides to translate Rohan's 'Pink Dark Boy' into English, for a school project.<br/> </p><p>In loving tribute to Duwang translations. Ongoing!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Before Google translate, there was Okuyasu Nijimura.

The idea'd come to him in a sort of 'Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure' way, in a moment of clarity afforded him through a mouthful of Tonio's _prosciutto e pesce_ salad (a trattoria original), between sips of crisp Alpine spring water and fresh-baked _focaccia col formaggio_. 

"You know what I should do for my next English project?" Okuyasu suggested, spraying the cover of Koichi's newest issue of Shonen Jump with dressing and spit, pointing across the table with a well-oiled fork for emphasis. "I should translate the first 10 volumes of Rohan's 'Pink Dark Boy'. You know it doesn't have an official English release?"

Koichi grimaced, defensively.

"I'm not sure that that's a good idea," he started to say, reaching for a napkin to wipe off the stains on his magazine, sighing at the conveniently-placed mark over the name 'Rohan Kishibe'. "You know how Rohan is about..."

A beat, as if to consider the most delicate way to put it, before deciding upon: "...Well, everything."

"It'd probably piss him off," Josuke replied mildly, tentatively poking at his _risotto nero_ , looking dubious of the squid ink. "What'd you get in English last year?"

"A 1.5 out of 5." Okuyasu shrugged, forking down another mouthful of salad despite the atomic-sized bomb he'd just dropped on the rest of the table (Koichi attempting a friendly reminder that 1.5 out of 5 is a fifth of a point above failing), tears streaming down his face. "Man, this is really good."

Josuke gave Okuyasu a _look_ , one that suggested that everything about this idea was something Josuke judged to be completely insane and possibly suicidal. As per usual, Okuyasu was too busy crying about the mozzarella in the bread (so fresh! so authentic!) to give a solitary fuck, so Josuke was left to contemplate the extent to which he'd be involved in this endeavor, and whether or not Koichi would have to be used as a human sacrifice to pacify Rohan's inevitable rage.

After a few more seconds of heartfelt sobbing, Okuyasu managed to compose himself. "Anyway! You think he'd be flattered? Rohan, I mean."

In response, Josuke offered his expert opinion. "No." 

To be fair, Josuke appreciated the size and durability of the enormous brass balls that Okuyasu possessed to even think of doing something like this, which was probably why they were still friends. The problem now was preventing said gigantic brass balls from being torn out with tremendous force, or at the very least, defending them against a very hard, very precise kick. Neither option seemed particularly attractive, given that they both involved balls and some sort of crazy intervention, but for a friend, Josuke Higashikata was prepared to jump through a few burning hoops.

Shoveling a bite of risotto between his lips, Josuke chewed carefully, half-listened to Okuyasu asking Koichi if he could borrow Koichi's Pink Dark Boy volumes ("only if you promise not to bend the spine—"), and made a mental note not to get on Rohan's bad side before Okuyasu finished his project. 

Difficult.


	2. Chapter 2

Everything that needed to be prepared had been prepared: a few trips to Owson, 570 yen for 19 manga pages worth of scanning spent, and two phone calls to Koichi later (the first going directly to voicemail, the second to a chillingly curt reply from Yukako), Josuke and Okuyasu were ready to take on the world, in a bizarrely literal sense. The game plan was that they didn't have one, that somehow their combined grades of 1.5 and 2.5 out of 5 in English could miraculously average to something acceptably close to passable, and that somehow either Jotaro or Joseph could be relied upon to 'proofread', i.e. rewrite, entire chunks of their disjointed script, if need be.

 

The need, Josuke thought, would definitely be.

 

"Alright, first page," Okuyasu declared with a false sense of authority, laying out the first of many poorly-scanned manga pages on the living room table. "This shouldn't be too hard, right? It's only the chapter title and one bubble, piece of fuckin' cake. Let's roll."

 

"What's the chapter title?" Josuke replied, between tearing the plastic off the several bottles of white-out that they'd bought. Another brilliant idea from two high school boys (unknowingly) attempting their first scanlation on a budget: use white-out, hand-write the dialogue, re-scan. Shaking the plastic jars of white-out to even out the consistency of its contents, Josuke craned his neck to see the first obstacle the two of them would be up against.

 

"「鮮やかなる暗闇への挑戦」... 'Challenging the Vivid Darkness'? Jeez, could that guy have picked a more flowery title?"

 

"At least the speech bubble is just 'ah'." Josuke reached out, put a smooth glob of white over the mercifully straightforward exclamation. "One down, two to go."

 

Their first course of action was to consult the dictionary, digest the title one word at a time. '鮮やか' came up with words like _clear_ and _vivid_ , '暗闇' with _dark_ , _in the darkness_ , and '挑戦' with _challenge_ , _defiance_. The vocabulary was the easiest part, admittedly, and their bloated sense of self-assurance ran into a hard wall when the two of them realized that putting a bunch of nouns together didn't necessarily imply that they'd written a coherent sentence.

 

" _Challenge is for the Dark which is Vivid_?" Okuyasu suggested hopefully, as if confirmation from Josuke was akin to getting expert feedback from a native English speaker. Unfortunately for Okuyasu, while Josuke's father was undoubtedly American, Josuke himself had never left Japan in anything but his dreams. Pausing, Josuke considered the proposal with a frown, tapping the eraser-end of his mechanical pencil against his lips to buy himself some time.

 

"Too long," was the conclusion he came to, quickly appended with: "it's a title, we gotta make it snappy, right? Like, what's the Coke slogan again...?"

 

" _Always Coca-Cola_?" The admiration was thick in Okuyasu's voice.

 

"Yeah, like that. How 'bout..." A sharp point with his pencil, a la Jotaro Kujo. " _Challenge! Dark is Vivid_?"

 

After a round of whooping and enthusiastic high fives that culminated in a distinctly annoyed "settle down, boys!" from Tomoko upstairs, the both of them sat down, carefully wrote down ' _Charenge! Dark is Vivid_ ' on the dried surface of the meticulously applied white-out, and finished with the documentation of ' _aaa!_ ' on the solitary speech bubble a few inches down on the page.

 

Satisfied, they reviewed their handiwork, nodded sagely to each other, and then proceeded to play F-MEGA for the next 2 hours.

 

"We did good," was the evaluation of the night by Okuyasu, as he turned to leave for the night, his completed page of the first chapter of Pink Dark Boy tucked into a folder under his arm. A small trophy of their efforts, he would say with pride, neglecting to mention that his contribution to said efforts were minimal, at best. "You down for tomorrow?"

 

"Yeah," Josuke shrugged, because they'd really only done 15 minutes of hard work that day, really, and it seemed a lot easier than he thought, putting words down on paper. “Tomorrow.”


End file.
